Miscellaneous Meanderings

Miscellaneous Meanderings on the signs of the times (Vol. 9, No. 104)
Dr. Mark S. Latkovic
November 1, 2018
All Saints Day

~To me, Dr. Christine Blasey-Ford sounded less credible on a second hearing.

~Instead of a heterosexual male such as Judge Brett Kavanaugh, imagine next time a progressive gay judge who is nominated for a seat on the Supreme Court is accused by a gay man of harassment. How will the Left sort out the competing claims then?

~People have made a big deal out of Justice Kavanaugh’s outburst and anger as proof that he does not have the “judicial temperament” or demeanor to sit on the Supreme Court. To me, it was evidence of his authenticity as a real human being. Judicial temperament isn’t merely a psychological condition, it’s a jurisprudential concept.

~Planned Parenthood Action tweeted on October 30th that ending birthright citizenship is “Despicable, egregious, unconstitutional.” That’s one organization that should never combine the word “birth” and “right” or use it in the same sentence.

~My birthday on November 2nd… In 5 years I’ll be 60. That’s a blink of an eye that I hope to see.

~In targeting our New Evangelization efforts in the black community, I’m wondering if we should focus on already-established organizations and/or groups with significant black populations (e.g., police and fire departments, black business organizations, Political groups, and so on). It might make an

~Sometimes I get the feeling that the Catholic Church can appear like the automobile industry in a strategy of abandoning certain countries (Europe) while looking for new ones (Africa, China).

~The contentious Kavanaugh hearings reminded me of a well-known ethics example several decades old. The late proportionalist Fr. Richard McCormick, S.J.’s response to the “Sheriff case” indicates that he would be willing to sacrifice an innocent man to prevent the mob from taking the lives of more innocent people. There are many “McCormick’s” out there today willing to sacrifice the innocent to the mob.

~Well, it’s unfortunate that Cardinal Ouellet does not come off looking good with this letter of his responding to Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò (see http://ericsammons.com/papolatry-cardinal-ouellet/). He’s a good theologian who, it seems, has been sucked into the politics of the current progressive papacy, and it has turned him into a “company man.”

~Our building manager sent an email about Sacred Heart Major Seminary’s heating-cooling system, where he made mention of its “pneumatic system.” That makes sense; it’s a seminary after all.

~Is learning Arabic (or any language) a form of cultural appropriation?

~It seems to me that LGBTQ promoter James Martin, S.J. (with his massive Twitter and Facebook following) is more well-known and has caused more damage than the famous dissenter Fr. Charles Curran (still living) ever has or ever could.

~ I read that an “MIT thought experiment [for driverless cars] suggests society values the life of a dog over that of a human criminal.” I think we knew this for some time now without the experiment. Princeton’s infamous utilitarian and animal rights father, Peter Singer, would surely agree.

~There’s something so somber about November – both the weather and the liturgy – where we remember and pray for the dead.

~All of the people, for all of these years, who we thought were attending other parishes for Sunday Mass over the holidays were actually not attending other Catholic churches. They simply stayed home. Like the sparsely attended churches on Sunday, so then shall heaven be.

~In the midst of the priest-bishop-cardinal-pope sex abuse crisis, there’s a meme going around that says I’m not Catholic because of the hierarchy but because of Jesus, the Eucharist, and so on. My problem with it is this: We don’t have the Eucharist or any of the other sacraments without the priesthood. Moreover, Catholicism is by its nature a hierarchical religion. There’s no getting around that fact. Better to talk about the human and divine nature of the Church as founded by Christ himself and how its holiness is an intrinsic property due to Jesus Christ not us (cf. Vatican Council II, Lumen gentium, e.g., no. 8).

~On Labor Day, we remembered the famous “labor priest,” Msgr. George G. Higgins (1916-2002) [see https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2011/08/31/remembering-msgr-george-higgins-labor-day)]. I had him for one course on social ethics at The Catholic University of America in the late 1980s. The course wasn’t particularly noteworthy (e.g., I don’t remember taking a lot of notes), but it was interesting nonetheless to listen to the life experience of a well-known and respected social justice priest.

~Here’s one of the problems with the World Meeting of Families (Dublin 2018): The Vatican not only invited Fr. James Martin, S.J. to speak and proposed the topic and the title of his talk (“How parishes can welcome L.G.B.T. Catholics”), they also vetted and approved it (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3TvffTC1wQ, the first minute). This event tells you all you need to know about the present state of the Catholic Church.

~It looks like the sex abuse revelations in the Church are like landmines planted all over the place that will keep going off (as real ones do after the war ends) – even when the scandal will supposedly be long “over.”

~It’s interesting to note that many of today’s bishops were formed during the revolutionary times of the free-wheeling 1960s and 1970s, when both the culture and the seminaries were experimenting (Around the years 1965—1980). Then, these same men are made bishops under the conservative papacies of St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI (The years 1978—2013). Men often liberal by disposition, now exercise ecclesiastical power under more traditional papacies. Many of them “toe the line,” to be sure, but their hearts just aren’t into it. Then, when Francis is elected, these liberals are free to act like, well, liberals. We’re seeing them act quite openly like liberals today. There’s no need for hiding.

~Not all mystics are saints, but all saints are mystics.

~Today we are fascinated with all manner of ancestry, genealogy, etc., but find ourselves cut off from tradition, allegedly finding it boring and of no practical importance to our lives. Go figure.

~It seems that everyone today is but a second (or a click?) away from either fame or infamy. Think Judge Brett Kavanaugh.

~What has happened to George Will lately? In a recent column, he writes: “In recent decades, all civilian institutions important to national governance — Congress, the presidency, the parties, the bureaucracy, the media — have, by their ignorance and arrogance, earned the disdain that now engulfs them. Yet although the [Supreme] Court regularly renders controversial decisions on matters about which the country is either deeply ambivalent (e.g., same-sex marriage) or hotly divided (e.g., abortion), its decisions are usually broadly accepted as ratifying norms that must be, and soon are, accepted.” (See https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/09/supreme-court-kavanaugh-confirmation-degrading-debacle/). Norms “that must be…accepted”? I know Will has been a Never Trumper from the beginning and its caused him to become somewhat loopy, but… This is breathtaking in its substitution of legal positivism for authentic morality.

~We are not, in the words of the 1985 USA for Africa pop song, “the world,” but we are “the Church.” The laity must remember that when they are tempted to either leave the Church or to be passive in the face of the sex abuse scandals.

~James Martin, S.J., is famous for his phrase, “building bridges.” I’d love to burn some of those bridges…Figuratively, of course.

~A lesson from the Judge Brett Kavanaugh nomination: In the future, Republicans will nominate only women candidates.

~Another lesson from the Kavanaugh nomination/hearing: the Democrats are evil.

~A further lesson from the hearing: Contrary to the Democrats, accusations are not evidence.

~Given the legal and cultural acceptance of same-sex marriage and transgenderism, in the near future, I’m convinced that you could convince people to eat a crap sandwich if you repeat it long enough, loud enough, and back up refusal to eat it, with threats. Mark my words…

~I saw that the far-left “comedian” Patton Oswalt tweeted a photo of himself wearing a “Believe Women” T-shirt (see https://twitter.com/pattonoswalt?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor). Apart from the obvious virtue-signaling, it got me thinking. To accept his message, I’d have to believe him – a man. So, what in the end is the message of the T-shirt besides believe women? That I can’t believe men who deny sexual assault? But Patton Oswalt’s a man. Or is it that one can only believe this one man, Patton Oswalt?

~Here’s George Will again. In a column devoted to the death penalty, which he wants abolished, Will asserts the following: “it certainly is true that standards of decency do evolve, and that America’s have improved astonishingly since 1958: Think about segregated lunch counters, and much else.” (See http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/will092918.php3). Do you agree? Have our standards of decency “improved astonishingly”? Wouldn’t the abortion license reduce that “improved astonishingly” quite significantly? And: What about our toxic culture?

~“Death penalty change shows ‘true dogmatic progress,’ says Archbishop Fisichella” (see https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2018/08/03/death-penalty-change-shows-true-dogmatic-progress-says-archbishop). But in what sense here does Archbishop Rino Fisichella mean “progress” when speaking of dogma? How does one determine (whether or not) we have made this progress, especially when it comes to dogma, where the Church is most concerned with truth? Is the dogma true? – not does it conform to some socio-political trend. That’s the central question that needs to be asked. The article also quotes the Archbishop commenting that the affirmation that the death penalty is morally inadmissible “recognizes that conversion, repentance and the desire to start life afresh cannot be taken away from anyone, not even from those who have been guilty of very serious crimes.” But, possibly except for the last of those three, can’t those things be accomplished on death row? How does capital punishment cancel them out?

~George Will writes (http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/will080618.php3): “It has been said that the great moments in science occur not when a scientist exclaims ‘Eureka!’ but when he or she murmurs ‘That’s strange.’ [Abraham] Flexner thought the most fertile discoveries come from scientists ‘driven not by the desire to be useful but merely the desire to satisfy their curiosity.’ He wanted to banish the word ‘use’ in order to encourage institutions of learning to be devoted more to ‘the cultivation of curiosity’ and less to ‘considerations of immediacy of application.’” The religiously-minded (e.g., the patristic and medieval theologians) would have spoken of contemplation. But not only figures such as St. Thomas Aquinas, but also pagan philosophers like Aristotle. Until Francis Bacon, this was the chief purpose of natural science or natural philosophy.

~“Archbishop Fisichella talks Veritatis splendor, Francis, and development of doctrine” (https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/archbishop-fisichella-talks-veritatis-splendor-francis-and-development-of-doctrine-23175). While affirming as “immutable” some “fundamental points that remain as milestones in the dogmatic and moral teaching of the Church,” Archbishop Fisichella claimed that “The truth is not a ‘fixistic’ dimension.” It is, he said a “dynamic concept.” In fairness, he also states: “The truth, for the Christian, is first of all that living Word that the Lord has left us.” But I’m afraid these remarks of the Archbishop, who was also commenting on St. John Paul II’s 1993 encyclical on the moral life, Veritatis splendor – which defended the existence of moral absolutes and intrinsically evil acts – are cause for great misunderstanding. He seems to be saying, despite his efforts to nuance it, that truth is not unchanging. If that’s the case, how can truth be truth?

~In Carl R. Trueman’s “Boris and the Burqa” (see https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2018/08/boris-and-the-burqa), the author writes: “The debate over the burqa is a reminder to conservatives that religious freedom is not in practice an unqualified right, nor should it be… [O]ur arguments for religious freedom need to be plausible in the public square, and rooted in an understanding of what it means to be a society of human persons.” With respect to the latter, Trueman notes the importance of seeing a person’s face in public. I agree with these thoughts. In the struggle against militant Islam, getting religious liberty right will be of vital importance. As Vatican II expressed it in its December 1965 Declaration on Religious Freedom, Dignitatis humanae, 4: “Provided the just demands of public order are observed, religious communities rightfully claim freedom in order that they may govern themselves according to their own norms, honor the Supreme Being in public worship, assist their members in the practice of the religious life, strengthen them by instruction, and promote institutions in which they may join together for the purpose of ordering their own lives in accordance with their religious principles.” (My emphasis; see also 7)

~I often encounter two contrasting foreign policies: the Obama type, where refusal to engage in dirty actions like torture is justified on account of these actions not being consistent with our “values” (whatever that means) or the consequentialist type, where one is willing to engage in such actions on account of the fact that they work.
(cf. https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271042/self-loathing-and-appeasement-bruce-thornton). Rarely do we see a natural law perspective.

~There have been days this summer, when I was sweating so much I could have watered the flowers with my perspiration.

~G.K. Chesterton said: “It has been the great tragedy of our time that people were taught to read and not taught to reason.” Well, today, they can’t read either (Maybe I should start a blog devoted to updating G.K.C. for the 21st century).

~I found these thoughts of the social scientist Patrick Fagan (see https://marri.us/sex-and-the-triple-crisis-in-family-church-and-state/) fascinating (and scary) in light of the sex abuse scandals rocking the Church: “As Russell Hittinger wrote earlier this year in First Things, there are three primary societies to which people most naturally belong: Our family, our religious community (church, synagogue, mosque, or temple or meeting house), and our political community (nation or state). He emphasized that all three, for the first time in history, are in deep crisis. In the past when there was a crisis in one, or even in two, the other(s) corrected it. The simultaneous crisis today in each of the three has the same cause: the sexual gone wild.”

~“‘Amoris laetitia’ [AL] must be read ‘always in continuity’ with Church teaching, pope says” (see https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/amoris-laetitia-must-be-read-always-in-continuity-with-church-teaching-pope-says-54781). But he says this in an August 2017 letter to a British Catholic author. Note well: Not in a response to, e.g., the “dubia.” The faithful moral theologian Thomas Petri, O.P. says in the CNA article: “If you read the whole document, as the pope is inviting people to do, as a call for people to move and live in grace, its meaning is clear. If people choose to read specific lines or footnotes out of context and try to apply Thomistic thought to imply that the instructions of Christ must be somehow mitigated or considered inapplicable, that would be completely alien to St. Thomas.” [Is it/would it be alien to Francis?] But I don’t know many credible theologians who have criticized AL taking passages out of context or not reading the document as a whole.

~One danger in our reaction to the sex abuse crisis in the Church is – as I said above – for Catholics to over-spiritualize the problem. For example, I was reminded of this when reading about the Archdiocese of Detroit’s “point-man” for clergy misconduct, Msgr. Michael Bugarin’s response to a radio caller: “And so [because females are also abused] it is a crisis across the board. And again I go back to the quote I stated earlier [essentially a paraphrase of Elizabeth Scalia], this is not a gay problem, this is not a straight problem, this is not a left, right, this is not about living the Gospel.”
(see https://www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/detroit-archdiocese-denies-homosexuality-key-to-clerical-abuse). It’s true that not living the Gospel has caused this problem. But not living the Gospel causes every problem. It’s like saying the Devil is the cause of sin. Of course we have to live the Gospel and failure to do so will be disastrous. But that response tells us nothing about the specifics of this problem and the steps – including the crucial natural steps – we have to take to deal with it.

~When an artist has a Neil Young-type voice, they need not fear getting older and losing a wonderful voice they never had. But I can’t imagine anyone else singing the songs that Neil Young sings so well.

~In the midst of the Catholic Church’s sex abuse crisis (round 2), we have to remember, especially those thinking of leaving the Church over it, that we are all the Church – from the Pope on down to the lowliest baptized member. Moreover, the Church is “one complex reality which comes together from a human and a divine element” (Vatican Council II, Lumen gentium, 8). These thoughts are occasioned after reading Damon Linker’s article (http://theweek.com/articles/792775/unbearable-ugliness-catholic-church), stating that he is fed up with the Church and is leaving it.

~“The Catholic Church Is Losing Its War On Human Nature” (see http://thefederalist.com/2018/08/29/catholic-church-losing-war-human-nature/)… Or so says the author (an atheist) of this piece on the Catholic Church’s sex abuse crisis. But you know something’s wrong when he cites The New Yorker for his negative assessment of St. Augustine’s (alleged) negative understanding of sex. How about reading Msgr. Cormac Burke instead? Here’s a sample passage from his excellent “Saint Augustine and Conjugal Chastity”: “Already in De bono coniugali, in a passage where he compares nourishment and generation, he had insisted that sexual pleasure, sought temperately and rationally, is not and cannot be termed concupiscence. [Note omitted] Elsewhere he contrasts the lawful pleasure of the conjugal embrace with the unlawful pleasure of fornication.” [http://www.churchinhistory.org/pages/booklets/augustine.pdf. Originally published in Communio 17 (Winter 1990), this version is dated May 29, 2006]

~Someone posted something on Facebook about how many of the tech billionaires (Jobs, Gates, Zuckerberg) limited their children’s access to their technological gadgets. Gee thanks! You guys get rich off us and don’t worry much about shielding our children from the negative effects of your devices. Effects that you know are very real.

~We are subject to a barrage of stories about racist acts. But it’s as if the media have a pre-fitted filter that the stories are almost always without question those of white-on-black racism. There is no other kind; there can be no other kind. They need not even search out these stories. They are presupposed to be a constant occurrence and too numerous to count. For them, it’s just the way it is…

~When I was growing up in the 60s and 70s, girls who acted like boys were called “tomboys.” Today, these same tomboys would be susceptible to the transgender ideology that is in the air we breathe.

~It seems as if the same people who want to “build bridges rather than walls,” are rather good at constructing high fences around their property. I don’t remember this many fences when I was growing up – at least the tall ones that you can’t see through.

~My wife is crazy. The evidence is irrefutable. She married me.

~My view of Francis’ pontificate: The Holy Father could have made things much easier for himself and us if from the beginning of his papacy he would have reassured the conservatives that he was maintaining the course set by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, but also reassured the liberals that he would emphasize many of the things that they favor (at least on legitimate issues that his two predecessors favored as well), but that he would simply intensify that emphasis. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened.

~You know you’re getting old when you’re older than your boss.

~I think of myself as a reasonable person; I try to use reason as much as possible. The problem is most other people don’t use reason.

~I hate when people – both faithful and dissenters alike – say the Catholic Church condemns “artificial contraception.” But the “withdrawal” method (coitus interruptus), for example, is not only a form of contraception it is also “natural.” It is more accurate to say that the Church opposes contraception pure and simple.

~I heard a funeral homily recently where the priest seemed to be implying a denial of the resurrection of the body. I don’t think he meant that but his words said as much.

~I think that a good deal of the transgender phenomenon is not simply to be attributed to our culture’s individualism, but to a cultural mania that has swooped up people who never would have been swooped up without the influence of the culture in this matter (e.g., via social media).

~Liberals – including those in the Catholic Church – are fond of saying that the Church doesn’t credibly address or confront sexual issues. But this simply means that liberals don’t like what the Church teaches about those matters.

~Long gone, it seems, are the days when you could “read your way into” the Catholic Church or back into the Church. Today, just go watch a video or listen to a podcast.

~The Church still produces converts, but these modern versions don’t seem to know how to convert; they’re not always good at being converts as in the old days.

~June is not only Pride Month for the LGBTQ crowd, but it’s also another month for progressive Catholics such as James Martin, S.J. to virtue-signal.

~I wonder: Do canonists get to fire things? (I suspect that only Catholics will get this).

~Ever notice how reporters will ask someone whose friend or loved one was the victim of a violent crime, “You’re still emotional after all these years?” Well, of course the person is still emotional – a person he/she cares about was kidnapped or raped or killed you dunce!

~In a June 19, 2018 story “Sexuality, dissent high on agenda for Synod meeting on youth” [News analysis] (see https://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=37386), we read: “More generally, the document observes that ‘many young Catholics do not follow the indications of the Church’s sexual moral teachings,’ and bishops agree that ‘questions about sexuality must be discussed more openly and without prejudice.’ The Synod document says that young people who dissent from the Church’s teaching on controversial issues nevertheless ‘express the desire to remain part of the Church.’” I want to make three points about this here. First, what’s this stuff about “indications”? Haven’t the drafters heard of “norms”? Second, since when during the last half century haven’t we discussed questions about sex “openly”? Third, the young who “dissent from the Church’s teaching” on hot-button issues, still “desire to remain part of the Church.” Really? But isn’t that a bit like the Planned Parenthood worker saying, “I don’t accept abortion, but I want to remain a member of PP”?

~I’m wondering when Amazon Polly (a service that turns text into lifelike speech) is going to object to narrating articles that express views critical of the LGBTQ movement?

~Liberals try to win arguments not with facts, but, among other sophistical ways, by constantly changing the terms of the debate (sometimes called “moving the goalposts”).

The entire segment [on Hannity’s program] was supposed to denounce Cortez along with every other Democrat but ended up revealing how reasonable their platforms actually are.” Well, I must say that this agenda is scary: It sounds more like socialism and radical secularism than anything else.

~Our 1-year-old granddaughter has a toy teepee tent. I wonder if that would be considered “cultural appropriation”?

~The story of Jesus healing the woman with the hemorrhage (see Mark 5:21–34) contains, if you didn’t realize it, some real sarcasm from his disciples: 24 He went off with him, and a large crowd followed him and pressed upon him. 25 There was a woman afflicted with hemorrhages for twelve years. 26 She had suffered greatly at the hands of many doctors and had spent all that she had. Yet she was not helped but only grew worse. 27 She had heard about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak. 28 She said, “If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured.” 29 Immediately her flow of blood dried up. She felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction. 30 Jesus, aware at once that power had gone out from him, turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who has touched my clothes?”31 But his disciples said to him, “You see how the crowd is pressing upon you, and yet you ask, ‘Who touched me?’”32 And he looked around to see who had done it. 33 The woman, realizing what had happened to her, approached in fear and trembling. She fell down before Jesus and told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be cured of your affliction.”
~You know you’re getting old when everyone on President Trump’s short list (5–7names as of June 30) to replace the seat of retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy for Supreme Court is younger than you.

~The 4th of July is just four days away. It’s one of my favorite holidays, ever since I was a boy. I love it not so much for the fireworks, but for the reminder of the many blessings of our country, flawed as it is.

Miscellaneous Meanderings on the signs of the times (Vol. 9, No. 101)
Dr. Mark S. Latkovic
June 1, 2018

~My wife read to me an ad for a contraceptive she saw in Glamour magazine that spoke of an egg implanting. Hey Glamour, eggs don’t implant, embryos do. So much for the liberal #Science people at that women’s magazine.

~I really want to know who designated the Sam Bernstein Law Firm “The first family of law”?

~“How should Catholics respond to migration caravans?” (https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/how-should-catholics-respond-to-migration-caravans-29572). The article notes that “Joseph Capizzi, a professor of moral theology at Catholic University of America, told CNA that the United States has both a duty to consider the asylum claims of migrants and to assist at resolving situations that trigger the need for migration.” I agree with this assessment, but really think we need to emphasize doing more with respect to the latter today.

~Teaching would be a great profession if it didn’t have to include students.

~ I’ll say it again: LinkedIn has undergone what I call “Facebookification.”

~I write poetry, but I’m not a poet. I also have a doctorate and teach in a graduate school, but I don’t consider myself a scholar. I teach theology, but don’t consider myself a theologian.

~People often ask for “positive thoughts” or “positivity” when undergoing a particular challenge, say, an illness. For many, it’s become the new way for non-believers to say “pray for me,” while avoiding having to ask for real prayers and therefore sounding religious.

~When you abandon what makes you especially unique as a Church – and here I’m thinking in particular of Humanae Vitae’s teaching rejecting contraception – you risk a particularly bad outcome and/or terrible consequences you may not have expected. In this case, for example: no babies to grow up and fill up our Catholic schools. But you rarely hear this as a reason for why Catholic schools close.

~We hear many people compare Pres. Donald Trump’s “bull in a china shop” behavior unfavorably with former president Barrack Obama’s. But the latter’s rule-breaking behavior – at least when it came to the law – was often even more shocking. It simply wasn’t noticed as such because it was usually (seen as) a form of “dignified” anti-Constitutionalism.

~When you’re young, you don’t want to get out of bed and do things like chores and go to school. When you get older, however, waking up is good: it means you’re not dead yet.

~A sign of the eschaton (i.e., of Jesus Christ’s imminent return) will be when the insufferable Fr. James Martin, S.J. stops tweeting, i.e., really “virtue-signaling.”

~If Adam and Eve committed the first sin today – the Fall – they could get off the hook by claiming mental illness or a version of the LGBTQ claim, “You [God] made me/us that way.”

~When Trump called M-13 gang members “animals” (see https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/05/23/trump-calls-ms-13-gang-members-animals-praises-rod-rosenstein/638468002/), it gave social media yet another occasion to go ballistic and “virtue-signal.” But even St. Thomas Aquinas referred to sinners as descending to a “beastly state”: “By sinningman departs from the order of reason, and consequently falls away from the dignity of his manhood, in so far as he is naturally free, and exists for himself, and he falls into the slavish state of the beasts, by being disposed of according as he is useful to others. This is expressed in Psalm 48:21: ‘Man, when he was in honor, did not understand; he hath been compared to senseless beasts, and made like to them,’ and Proverbs 11:29: ‘The fool shall serve the wise.’ Hence, although it be evil in itself to kill a man so long as he preserve his dignity, yet it may be good to kill a man who has sinned, even as it is to kill a beast. For a bad man is worse than a beast, and is more harmful, as the Philosopher states (Polit. i, 1 and Ethic. vii, 6).” [S.t., 2-2, Q. 64, a. 2, reply to obj. 3]. See also Dennis Prager’s fine retort to Trump’s critics (see https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/trump-animals-comment-ms-13-why-it-offends-left/). Finally, even Jesus used language that compared sinners to animals (e.g., “brood of vipers,” Mt. 12:34). This doesn’t mean that we’re one step away from sounding like Nazis. We are focused on bad behavior, not ethnic or racial or religious characteristics.

~To be consistent, feminists shouldn’t be allowed to use the word virtue since it comes from the Latin word vir for man. But feminists have never been consistent or virtuous.

~A lot of life seems spent waiting – while you’re minding your own business – for someone to either criticize you or yell at you.

~Today’s greater emphasis on social as opposed to personal morality has lost sight of the fact that social morality is possible – at least a good one – only when personal morality is sound.

~The “Prime Minister [Of Ireland] Leo Varadkar portrayed the vote [to repeal the 8th Amendment which prohibited abortion] as part of a ‘quiet revolution’ towards modernization. ‘The people have spoken…The people have said that we want a modern constitution for a modern country, that we must trust women and respect them to make the right decision and the right choices about their healthcare.’” (“Forwards or Backwards?” The Daily Grind, May 30, 2018, http://thedailygrind.news/tdgn_wp/). What on earth does legalizing abortion, i.e., killing unborn babies, have to do with “modernization”? Or “compassion,” as many of the leaders pushing repeal said?

~Summer arrives in 3 weeks. Since I’m not at all a fan of Spring, I’m looking forward to it.

~As I get older, I feel the communion of saints coming closer to me. When I was younger, it was I moving toward them.

~St. Pope John Paul II tells us in his 1993 encyclical, Veritatis splendor, no. 19 (http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_06081993_veritatis-splendor.html) that Christian perfection consists in the “following of Jesus, sequela Christi…” In fact, he says, “Following Christ is thus the essential and primordial foundation of Christian morality…”He explains this point: “More radically, it involves holding fast to the very person of Jesus, partaking of his life and his destiny, sharing in his free and loving obedience to the will of the Father.” And later, John Paul II will speak of imitating (no. 20) and following Christ (no. 21). But the latter is not “an outward imitation,” he tells us, since “it touches man at the very depths of his being. Being a follower of Christ means becoming conformed to him who became a servant even to giving himself on the Cross (cf. Phil 2:5-8).” Ever since I’ve had children (and now a grandchild), I often think of what John Paul II is saying this way: We have to cling to Christ in the same way a baby steadfastly clings to his or her mother.

~I don’t “make” anything (Just ask my wife). Most of what I do is in the realm of information and its flow and evaluation.

~One of the reasons I’m Catholic is that I’m afraid of who I’d be if I wasn’t.

~In our high tech world today we greatly emphasize STEM education. And there are good reasons for that. But what about the liberal arts, the humanities? (Well, at least when they’re done right). Aren’t they important too? Where will our ethics and values “come from”? They have to come from somewhere (And hopefully from the Church and the Bible). There are no “stems” on STEM from which these values will “grow.”

~When we say that an artist is doing a version of another artist’s song, for decades we have called it a “cover.” I have often thought this an odd term to use. Couldn’t we just say “version”?

~In an April 18, 2018 column, “Parenting of the future: Many embryos, each with DNA profile” (see https://www.apnews.com/daa979776f584c0da4bc8bb03fbd51af), Malcolm Ritter writes: “Here’s what Greely [i.e., Henry Greely, a Stanford University law professor who works in bioethics] envisions: A man and woman walk into a fertility clinic. The man drops off some sperm. The woman leaves some skin cells, which are turned into eggs and fertilized with the man’s sperm. Unlike in vitro fertilization today, which typically yields around eight eggs per try, the new method could result in 100 embryos. The embryos’ complete library of DNA would be decoded and analyzed to reveal genetic predispositions, both for disease and personal traits. The man and woman would get dossiers on the embryos that pass minimum tests for suitability. Out of, say, 80 suitable embryos, the couple would then choose one or two to implant.” Such a humanistic process isn’t it? Couples get “dossiers” on the embryos that pass the initial fitness test (And I thought it was only spies who got dossiers. And presidents too if you’re Trump). If these researchers weren’t scientists, we’d be calling them mad. All of this work in the name of “choice.” Let’s substitute “human persons” for every time the article speaks so clinically of “embryos.” Would we think differently of the science?

~If you’re looking for a piece that insightfully engages the crazy student activism on campuses these days more from the perspective of Martin Luther King, Jr. than Black Lives Matter, then this article by the black theologian Vincent Lloyd of Villanova University will be useful (see https://www.firstthings.com/article/2017/02/letter-to-a-campus-activist).

~James Kalb, in an interesting article, “Liberalism: An Option for Catholics?” (See https://www.crisismagazine.com/2018/liberalism-option-catholics) doesn’t have much hope for moral arguments based on the natural law. “As for natural law,” he writes, “from a practical standpoint it’s basically a front for conservative Catholicism. Non-Catholic natural law thinkers do exist, but most of them eventually convert. And in any event respectable public opinion considers the view intolerably sexist, homophobic, transphobic, and otherwise reactionary.” Rather than lament this state of affairs, however, I say we must rely on natural law more so than ever. Without natural law reasoning, we have no way of engaging the culture on moral issues on its own terms.

~“Natural Family Planning NFP: Where Catholics and non-Catholics get it wrong” (see https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/misunderstanding-nfp-where-catholics-and-non-catholics-get-it-wrong-58130). This is a very good article about NFP (It effectively quotes my colleague, Janet E. Smith, among other good things) except for this confusing line: “As long as couples do not impede the possibility of pregnancy through artificial means (contraception) or natural means (withdrawal), they act according to Church teaching, Pope Paul VI notes in Humanae Vitae.” There seems to be an equivalence made between means that are “artificial” and “contraception.” What makes a means “contraceptive,” however, is not its artificiality, but whether the couples using it intend to impede procreation or not. Also, “natural means” would include NFP. So, it’s confusing to call “withdrawal” a “natural means” that is wrong, but then label NFP a “natural means” that is morally okay. I would say that withdrawal – although it may be natural – is a form of contraception.

~Jonah Goldberg’s “Alfie Evans & Machine Thinking — Losing Human Element” (see https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/04/machine-thinking-alfie-evans-china-social-credit-score/). Citing recent examples of Big Brother in action in England (e.g., Alfie Evans) and in China, Goldberg argues: “We might need a moral panic about dehumanization.” Even though, he remarks, we are already “thinking” like machines and so: “[The] process seems well under way already, and I wonder what it will take before we get the moral panic we need.” Three cheers for moral panic!

~Do yourself a favor and watch this interview with Dr. Thomas Sowell (soon-to-be 88 on June 30) conducted by Dave Rubin on The Rubin Report discussing, among other things, his new book, Discrimination and Disparities (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ivf9jrXGAY).